June 27: Riding, Landscape, People, Money

Onguday. I'm here now.

                I took a day off today. Mainly because I want to write and I haven’t been able to up to now. Why not? Well, either I’ve been someone’s guest, or just plum tuckered out after 10 hours on the bike and finding a place to sleep and getting settled for the night. I tend to open my eyes at 5:30 am around here- that’s when the sun and the birds signal it’s morning. They don’t care if I’ve just pedaled over 7 hours. They think it is time for day. So I join them. Yesterday I was so sleepy on the saddle- during the long descent off my first pass- that I had to pull over for a nap. Which ended up being lunch and not a nap, but somehow it was enough of a change that the monotony of asphalt surfing could no longer lure me to the twilight zone.

                I was very glad my Bike Friday took the downhill so well. In fact, it does everything well. I am totally impressed. No regrets. Only endorsements. The only thing is my saddle. I know what I’m getting myself for Christmas: I am going Brooks. Everyone else swears by them. With what I have right now, I just swear.  Another good reason for a layover day: let my sore spots heal. Little bun zits can be quite painful.

                The only other bodily pain I’ve experienced has been not in my neck or back or knees or thighs, it has been on my face. The pain of crunchy bugs smacking right into me on the downhill. More than once I thought how nice a face mask could be.

So if you’re reading this, you might want to hear something about Russia, or the Altai region, where I am, or the people.

 So here you go:

                Yesterday, I rode through what I would call a nice, soft landscape. Forested slopes rose around long-ago cleared meadows. When I would stop riding, I could hear the meadows.: chirping, buzzing, birdsong calling sounds that relaxed my whole self. There was nothing cold or sharp or dangerous anywhere And the road, for the most part, was new. Of course there were drivers. But after I turned the corner, 150 kms from Biysk, the traffic and the tourist traps thinned out considerably. I can’t say the speeds were much lower, but at least the overtaking drivers had room to go around me. And they did. Especially the long haulers, with cement, oil, and coal. They understood the road, and showed respect. I’m not sure why the bus drivers behaved differently. They were the ones who made my skin tense, as their air stream whooshed by awfully close.

                When I wasn’t watching the flowers or cows in the meadows, I found myself looking up: raptors! So many raptors! I never saw one make a kill. But it was interesting to watch them be still, in the sky, without my poor vision noticing a fluttering wing.

                I was on the lookout too, for the telltale signs of spring water. In this part of the world, the indigenous people hang colored strips of cloth, like offerings, I guess, in the trees surrounding holy places. And a fresh spring is sacred indeed. Some of them springs also have signs (in Cyryllic, of course) with either of the key words: Istochniki (Russian) or Arshan (Altaiski). I don’t even treat that water. In fact, I rarely treat any of the water I’m drinking, even though I have redundant systems- a filter and drops. Yesterday I did collect from a fresh-looking run off in the mountains- one without any sign of being a spring. I sipped it, and then my brain registered a faint smell wafting in from somewhere. Although I could neither see nor hear them, I smelled Cows. Note to self: add drops before drinking.

                At my first spring, (which I turned around for after initially not recognizing it since it took my brain a minute to process the information, having noted the colored cloth strips in passing) two truckers were picnicking at the little gazebo between the spring and the wooden toilet. Of course they invited me to join them. Telmen and Nikolai, Azerbaijanis, with Russian passports, they made the long drive between Barnaul where they lived to Kosh Agach where they’re from to buy sheep. They bring the sheep back to sell shashliki (shish kebabs). Talk about value added. Unfortunately, they cram 30 poor, little sheep in two tiers in the wooden box on the back of their truck. I wonder if people can taste the stress or if it gets grilled out. I shared some bread with the truckers, but declined their insistence of boiled kielbasa. They were the same color and diameter as Telmen’s fingers and they looked about as tasty.

                There have been other kindnesses out of nowhere. At the top of the pass yesterday, I enjoyed a half hour looking at souvenirs and talking with Alexandra, a successful saleswoman who works next to Euvgeny, a successful beekeeper. Sometimes I have small regrets, and not buying some of their honey- even though a jar cost $12.50 is one. The flavor was indescribable- I could only think it tasted like a fragrance, a fruity, floral, exotic fragrance. Even though I was not a paying customer, for some reason, Alexander gave me a beautiful magnet as a gift and then when I tried to buy some fresh pine nuts (still in the shell) she refused my money. I gave her an Alaskan postcard of a pair of moose. They have moose in these parts too.

                Every day I have had only pleasant encounters with the people I pass while on the road. An electrical engineer cum truck mechanic doing roadside repairs with his two partners enjoyed speaking a little English with me. Another man with a fishnet -shirt stretched over his sizable, bare belly asked me if I wanted to drink some milk when I had stopped to take pictures of his little son? grandson? on his little yellow bicycle. A woman came up to me when I stopped at a produkti (grocery) shop and congratulated me on my journey. She was the first of only three people to actually talk to me though. People are curious, but no one says a word.

                One on one, people are kind. What I find strange is that our American culture of smiling and greeting strangers is totally absent here. These days, since I’m reading a brief selection of his writings, I am the Dalai Lama.

              “The smile is a very important feature of the human face. .. A genuine, affectionate smile is very   important in our day-to-day lives…..I am quite sure that if this fourteenth Dalai Lama smiled less,  perhaps I would have fewer friends in various places…. whether president, queen or beggar, there is no difference, provided that there is genuine human feeling with a genuine human smile of affection.”

But no one recognizes me. I have not yet gotten a smile in return, although I have received curious and dubious looks in response to my friendly waves and greetings.

                The final thing I will write about now is money. I cannot believe how incredibly expensive things are. Before coming I noted that the exchange rate for dollars to rubles has stayed about the same for the past 14 years since I first traveled in Russia. What I didn’t realize is that inflation has raised the price of everything at least 300%  and up to 1000% A cheap room in a basic hotel is over 50 dollars. I just came back from the little bazaar in the town center. Here’s what I bought: 2 very small eggplants, 1 tomato, 1 red bell pepper, 3 mini, yellow, hybrid plums and 1 nectarine. Cost for that? $5.50. I don’t know how people can afford to live here with salaries for a general worker around $150 a month. As for us foreigners, this is an endorsement for cycling in Central or Southeast Asia. There you can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables for a song.